1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to an optical disc onto which an information signal is recorded and to a reproduction apparatus for the disc. More particularly, the present invention relates to an optical disc used for recording multimedia data such as digital video data, audio data and graphics data and to a reproduction apparatus for the optical disc.
2. Description of the Related Art
A Digital Video Disk (DVD), also known as Digital Versatile disk, is a type of optical data storage disk that utilizes a low power laser to read data from the disk. DVDs have much more storage capacity than Compact Disk-Read Only Memory (CD ROM) optical disks and may be used to store video, audio and digital data. CD ROMs typically hold approximately 650 megabytes of data. DVDs store, depending on the configuration, anywhere from 4.7 Gigabytes (GB) up to 17 GB of data (utilizing dual-layer, dual-sided disk).
DVDs, because of storage capacity, are quite suitable for storing videos or movies. It requires about two gigabytes of space to store one hour of an average video recording. Even though dual layer technology provides storage space for over four hours of playback, some movies are divided and recorded on both sides of a disk. This requires that the consumer xe2x80x9cflipxe2x80x9d (pull out the disk, turn it over and re-insert the disk into the player) the DVD during the movie. All dual-sided disks may be flipped manually or automatically in a robotically serviced library to access all the information contained on both sides, including DVD-10 and DVD-17.
Currently, DVD movies may have additional video programs installed on the disk for playing before the feature. Typically, all the additional programs must be viewed in order or, depending on the capabilities of the DVD player, the additional programs may be manually skipped and the movie played at the discretion of the viewer. For instance, an additional program may be an advertisement and the advertisement may be outdated by the time the viewer is able to view the movie (for instance a winter related commercial viewed in summertime).
It would therefore, be desirable to improve DVDs to provide cartoons, video clips, commercials, movie trailers, etc., which could be selected at random and played before the main movie. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide a display that occurs when a dual-sided DVD is xe2x80x9cflippedxe2x80x9d. Further, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus that would provide an option to display commercials prior to a Divx DVD to reduce the cost of the disk or play the Divx DVD movie commercial free.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a method and system that automatically plays particular video programs, stored on a DVD along with a movie, at specific times or in conjunction with the movie.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for automatically displaying a stored video clip during flipping of a DVD.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for displaying commercials to reduce the cost of a Divx version DVD disk.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus that will randomly select and play video clips stored on the DVD disk.
The foregoing objects are achieved as is now described. A bit is provided in each Digital Video Disk memory sector header to indicate the type of information contained in the main data portion of the frame. A vector of video clips are stored on the DVD disk and the DVD drive examines the bit to determine whether to play a movie or to employ logic provided by the present invention that allows the DVD drive to determine which included video clip to play instead. The video clips may include cartoons, commercials, movie previews, etc. and the logic employed by the DVD drive reads the bit allows for random or specific selections to be played at predetermined times, such as displaying a clip during the flipping process of a dual-sided DVD disk. Additionally, the method and apparatus may be applied to Divx DVD disks to determine whether commercials are played before, after or during the movie or the movie may be played commercial free.
The above as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.